City Council Meeting   2/16/2021

And again, if you're raising your hands now, we're assuming you're in line for the consent agenda.

If you're not in line for the consent agenda, you can lower your hand and raise it later in the meeting.

If you're just joining us, I'll repeat some of the links that may be useful.

If you need the agenda or the council packet, you can go to charlottesville.gov slash agenda.

Look for this meeting, the second city council meeting tonight, and you can download the packet or the agenda.

If you're watching via one of our streaming channels and you want to participate tonight, you will need to register for the Zoom webinar, which you can do at charlottesville.gov

slash zoom.

Just a quick little registration and then you'll get a link to get into the meeting.

Couple opportunities for the public to provide feedback to council tonight.

The first will be during the consent agenda.

If you wanted to comment on one of those items specifically, the mayor will ask if anyone has a comment.

That'll be followed by community community matters.

where we can have up to 16 speakers.

Right now we have five people who have signed up in advance.

If you wanna speak during community matters, just raise your hand at that part of the meeting.

And then at the end of the meeting, we'll have another matters by the public.

City Council is finishing up a closed meeting and they should be with us shortly.

While we're waiting, I'll pull up the city's website, show you a couple of highlights from today.

We provided an update on some housing relief funds that have been invested in the community over the past year.

And there's a great infographic that our economic development team put together, which highlights some of the success they've had with that program this year.

So that's worth taking a look at.

We've also got a customer satisfaction survey from our utilities department.

They would like to get your feedback.

So if you're a utilities customer, you have a chance to win a $200 gift card to the downtown mall.

So please check that out.

Another good shortcut to check out is charlottesville.gov slash city notes.

And on that page, you can see all the different email newsletters that you can sign up for.

Right at the top is Charlottesville Public Notices.

This is a weekly update that we send out every Friday and provide the community with an update on upcoming public meetings.

Some of the other items under there are emergency notices, all sorts of options to get bid postings.

We recently added requests for information related to the Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea statue.

So if you want to be kept informed about the city's procurement work, you can sign up for those alerts.

And then we have lots of topical news flashes.

City News Alerts is where our primary news that goes on the homepage is released.

Many of those are also copied into various departmental news flashes.

But you can sign up for as many of those as you wish.

Another one we like to promote is traffic advisories.

And that is now separate from sidewalk closures.

On the city's old website, those two things were sort of one and the same.

And I know a lot of people were receiving emails about sidewalk closures they were not interested in receiving, but if you want them, you can sign up for them.

If you just want to know when a street is being closed, you can sign up separately for traffic advisories.

Chip Boyles now has a place on our

city website and we've put up some biographical information about our new city manager.

We hope you'll check that out.

Another one of those links I mentioned was the calendar link.

and you can specify which calendar you want to see information about.

So maybe you only want to see Parks and Recreation.

You could specify that in the filter and just see the information from Parks and Rec.

We've had the new website for almost a year.

I think it was in April that we launched the website.

Still appreciate people's feedback.

Feel free to send that to webmaster at charlottesville.gov or you can send it directly to me.

I mentioned the streaming link.

and not only can you watch our hope somebody's asking me to show them something gotcha thank you Aaron I will do that you can watch our live broadcast of TV 10 and TV 13 but you can also see a list here of potential places to go for other meetings so of course we have city council planning commission

the BAR and CRHA we call those the the big four that are typically always televised and then other public meetings is where you can find the other groups that are meeting such as the housing advisory committee the police civilian review board we have um 30 more than 30 boards and commissions that we staff and have been broadcasting throughout the pandemic on zoom there's another 30 boards and commissions that um

City Council makes appointments to and serves on.

So all told, we have over 60 boards and commissions.

If you wanted to sign up to participate in any of those meetings, you would go to charlottesville.gov slash zoom.

And this has a sort of upcoming list of meetings related to public meetings that have a zoom webinar.

component.

For tonight's meeting, as many of you in Zoom have already done, you would have clicked on this link and then either clicked on register for webinar or click on this Zoom link and you would sign up to get a link to the actual meeting.

If you're just joining us and we've got about 27 people in the audience right now, City Council is in a closed meeting.

and we are waiting for them to come out.

If any staff are on that want to chat

me up in Zoom.

I'll be glad to pitch something on your website if you'd like me to.

One of the features we really like about the new website is the search function because it gives you proposed topics without ever having to go to a page.

One of the things I've heard very little of over the past year is the comment.

I can't find it on the website, so we're happy

that that's an indication people know where they're able to find things.

I just saw one of our budget team pop in and Charlottesville.gov slash budget is where you can find everything about past budgets and upcoming budgets.

This is the current budget that we're operating under right now under the budget work sessions link on the left.

You can see presentations made at recent meetings and also get the public budget meeting calendar.

So some upcoming activity on that front the next the first meeting council meeting in March.

Our new city manager Chip Boyles will present his first budget and the school division will present its budget.

Then we'll start into another round of work sessions.

and all of these will be done virtually and allow you to participate via Zoom.

By mid-March, we will have to have a public hearing on the tax rate and the budget.

And again, we'll have a community budget forum after that.

Another work session on the capital improvement program.

And then in April, we'll be finishing up

so that's all available on charlottesville.gov slash budget there's also a deep archive of past budgets going back in this case to 2007 so if you want to do any comparative analysis of your own all those archives are available speaking of archives I think a interesting thing on the agendas and minutes page

is linked to our Laserfish archive.

And in that archive, we have all sorts of things, including city council minutes going back to 1953 that have been scanned.

If you want something older than that, you're going to have to make an appointment to come visit us.

And I see we've got members of council coming back now, so I'm going to stop

Apologies.

Ms.

Councillor Hill.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

And I call this meeting to order.

All right, thank you.

Ms.

Mayor Walker?

Present.

All right, thank you.

I just want to confirm that we aren't removing anything from the agenda.

I just wanted to clarify our intention was to still have it.

We're not removing it.

Okay, just want to make sure.

Second.

All right, Ms.

Thomas.

Mayor Walker.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yes.

Councilor Hill.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

So we're at announcements now.

I would like to just start out by saying welcome to Mr. Boyles.

He's been working over the past month, but this is your day one.

Mayor, I have an announcement.

The Virginia Department of Social Services, the Commonwealth of Virginia State Board of Social Services benefits specialist appreciation month.

There's a resolution of appreciation, whereas Virginia has provided a safety net

to the most vulnerable citizens of the Commonwealth by administering the benefit programs of SNAP, TANF, medical assistance, general relief, auxiliary grant, refugee cash assistance, and energy assistance by local Department of Social Services, and whereas Virginia's landmark welfare reform legislation

and the present social economic climate in the United States and Virginia have significantly impacted the services provided by local benefit program specialists calling upon them to creatively promote individual self-sufficiency and personal responsibility

as essential employees and whereas Virginia's 3953 benefits program specialists, 3450 specialists, 463 supervisors and 40 managers have been at the forefront of public efforts to meet the need steadily maintaining a high rate of application processing

and case management to ensure that those qualified for social services and continue to receive them and whereas 38,897 TANF recipients and an additional $3,397,940 in TANF diversionary payments were issued to prevent long-term dependency on public assistance

773,719 SNAP recipients, 1,622,214 medical assistant recipients, 458 general relief recipients, 3,254 auxiliary grant recipients,

128,967,000 energy assistant households and 4,781 children under 17 in foster care are served through the benefit programs division and dependent on the dedication and commitment of benefit program specialists who handle their case

in an accurate and timely manner and whereas benefit program specialists are continually faced with reconciling an environment of rapidly changing policies, procedures and technological advances with quality control requirements and whereas benefit program specialists provide ethical public service, respect human dignity, are responsible for the application of the law,

Mayor, I have another announcement related to the Police Civilian Review Board.

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to schedule interviews by tonight's meeting, but council has decided we're going to schedule those interviews for this week and hold a special meeting this week in order to make that final appointment so we can just finally get that filled this week and not need to wait for the next council meeting.

So, um,

Thank you.

All right.

So we don't have the next one.

So Ms.

Consent Agenda 1, Minutes, January 19, Special Meeting, January 28, Schools Budget Work Session, February 3, Budget Work Session, 2, Appropriation, Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS, HIV Grant, Award $20,000, second reading,

three appropriation 2020 local emergency management performance grant supplemental $99,608 second reading

Four, Resolution Community Development Block Grant 2020 through 2021 Albemarle Home Improvement Program Contingency Plan 2020-2021 Minor Annual Action Plan Amendment, one reading.

All right, thank you.

So I just have a question about the city market.

So is Mr. Brown?

Yeah, he's here.

Yes, ma'am.

They did reduce it a little bit, but it was paid.

Okay.

So is there anything different?

Is there a different provision for this year?

No, ma'am.

Correct.

Our plan is to at least start there as a drive-through like we did last year at the high school and at Penn Park.

Okay.

So this location will be used no matter what, even if it's a drive-through market?

Correct.

Okay.

That's good.

All right.

Thank you.

Yeah, the high school and the location worked out really well and was very safe.

So if we can do that downtown too, if we can't do the normal market, which I know everyone missed, that would be good.

All right, well, that helps me with that.

If you'd like to speak to Council about one of those items on the consent agenda, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

And while we're waiting on that, Ms.

Attack, could you just, what is the amount that is going to be spent on this one project?

It's a little over $47,000.

Okay, thank you.

Ms.

Thomas.

Mayor Walker.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yes.

Councilor Hill.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

That carries 5-0.

Next up we have

the city manager response to community matters from the previous meeting.

Mayor Walker?

No.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

All right.

That carries four to one.

Thank you.

Thanks for the reminder.

So now next up we have the city manager response to the community matters and Mr. Bowles first meeting.

All right, thank you.

I didn't just want to assume, so.

No, that's, thank you.

All right.

Next up we have community matters and I'll turn it over to Mr. Wheeler.

Thank you.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

The five people that signed up in advance are Jessica Manley, followed by Myra Anderson,

followed by Betsy Rutger, Pastor Marvin Morgan, and Josh Karp.

And I don't see all of those people present, but I will call on the first person, Jessica Manley.

Each person will get up to three minutes to address council and please tell us your place of residence when you start your remarks.

Hello.

Hello, Mayor Walker and the Council.

Thank you for hearing my testimony.

My name is Jessica Manley.

I live at 1414 Hazel Street in Charlottesville.

I'm speaking today to raise a public infrastructure concern, the need for a lighted crosswalk or overpass at the intersection of Hazel Street and High Street.

and the continuation of the sidewalk on both sides of High Street.

This intersection is incredibly busy for pedestrian crossways as families from the Martha Jefferson and Locust Grove neighborhoods use this crosswalk to access the Rivanna River Trail, Rivanna River Outfitters, businesses on High Street.

and children walk to Burnley Moran Elementary School.

There's also a city bus stop on both sides of High Street at this junction.

Right now, there's a fading painted crosswalk and a pedestrian sign, but as a resident who crosses the street many times per day to walk my dog, I can tell you that cars are not heeding the signs and they're coming in very fast from 250 and also merging in from Meade Street and High Street from downtown in the other direction.

It's incredibly dangerous.

I've almost been hit several times myself.

A pedestrian was hit several years ago and thankfully not killed.

But as this intersection becomes more popular, as the Rivanna River Trail develops, there's really a need for a substantial crosswalk, a lighted crosswalk at this junction to protect public safety and also better sidewalks on both sides of High Street so people can access downtown from this neighborhood.

Mayor Walker, next up was Myra Anderson, who I don't see that she has joined yet, but I'll keep an eye on her.

So next we'll go to Betsy Ratger.

Betsy, you're on with City Council.

You've got three minutes.

Okay.

Oh, cool.

Oh, all right.

This is my first time on the webinar.

Hello, city councilors.

I just I'm I thought I would speak tonight to advocate for

when you look at the credit card policy to be inclusive of a way to reimburse or to gift cards or whatever it is to our community members who we really are trying to serve and it's hard to serve the community if we don't make it

easier for them to come and talk with us.

I work, I volunteer with the housing authority and we do offer gift cards for some meetings where they take a long time and they take a lot of sort of focus for residents to give feedback and it's the best feedback we get.

We can't serve them without it.

So I just sort of read about it and started thinking about all of the

ways that we hear information.

And I think this is an important one.

So we're not just hearing from our own peers and people who might invite us to lunch or whatever other.

I was thinking back to as a young architect, the men would always go golfing together.

and, you know, the women weren't invited.

So, you know, just trying to be inclusive.

I feel like government is there to support our most vulnerable citizens.

And so we need to encourage as much participation in that as we can.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, the next person who signed up in advance is Pastor Marvin Morgan.

and he sent me an email saying he may be late to the meeting, so I'll keep an eye out for him as well.

Next, we'll go to Josh Karp.

Josh, you're on with city council.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can.

Hi, good evening, councilors.

My name is Josh Karp.

I live at 1510 Amherst.

I'm here to talk about the garage at 7th and Market.

Probably not as surprised to hear it, but I am not a fan.

So maybe a few years ago, making a new garage made sense downtown.

Water Street never filled up, even before COVID, but Market Street got pretty close to full at peak times, and we had money in the budget.

Maybe we could afford $15 million for a new parking structure, but that was then, and lots of change in the past year.

Obviously, both garages are mostly empty these days, and hopefully demand comes back after people are vaccinated, but it might not be the same demand that we had before COVID.

People have been working from home for almost a year now, and some of them are going to keep doing it, at least part of the time.

Meanwhile, the market doesn't think that offices are coming back.

People are dumping real estate stocks, and the forecast is not suggesting that it's a great investment to build offices and parking garages.

So I don't know what will be for parking in a year, but honestly, no one does.

At the same time, also because of COVID, we're in this budget crunch.

From what I've heard, we'll have to raise taxes to pay for what's in the proposed CIP right now, and that's with cuts to housing, parks, and sidewalks.

I wouldn't mind parking downtown so much if we didn't have to raise taxes and cut from the housing budget to pay for it, but money is tight now, and I don't think it's right to build some more space for cars when we're not building enough space for people.

So we don't know what parking demand will look like in a year or two, and we don't have money to pay for a garage without more cuts.

But I've heard the argument that we don't have a choice.

We've got to build a garage to meet the obligations to the county.

But I think we do have some options here.

We can give the county spaces in the Market Street garage, give them the land back, build a smaller garage with housing on top of it.

We can build something, even if it's not the thing that's in the CAP right now.

So if you all think this is the best way to spend the money, $50 million, then fine, go ahead and fund the garage.

But if you don't think it's a good use of money, then you can vote against it.

As you know, last week the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend delaying funding for the garage and reducing it and thinking about scope differently.

Councillor Snook has written, and I agree, that the responsible choice here is to delay funding until we know better what demand will look like after COVID.

and I think the Planning Commission and Counselor Schnooker are just right about this.

Let's see what parking demand looks like after COVID, let's see what the budget looks like after COVID, but funding the project at Sempton Market right now as proposed in the CIP could be a mistake we'd be paying for for years.

So I hope that you will all think about what else to do with the money and the space and ask staff to bring back a budget that matches your priorities.

and Myra Anderson has now joined us.

Good evening.

Good evening mayor and members of the council and thank you for allowing me a few minutes to speak on a topic that is very close to my heart and even more closely connected to my DNA.

I am from Charlottesville and when I say I'm from Charlottesville I not only mean that I've lived here my whole life but has seven generations of my family dating back to the enslaved families of Monticello.

And I want to address with you the issue of the slave auction marker

and the call for a museum of the enslaved.

Both of these issues are very close to my heart because six of my ancestors were among the 33 sold on auction block in Court Square at the estate sale of Thomas Jefferson.

To start, let me say

As inadequate as the marker was, I found it incredibly problematic and disheartening that a white man would take it upon himself to steal or remove a plaque that was in no way connected to his DNA and without consulting 99.5% of the local black community and 100% of the descendant community.

From what I saw on the news, there was a majority white effort for a museum of the enslaved

and the only thing missing is the same thing that was missing in 1829 and that's black voice and black opinion and I don't just mean one or two black individuals now before the pandemic I'd attended one of the meetings of the historic resources committee and I urged the committee to get more feedback from the descendant community and from the Charlottesville African-American community by in way of engagement meetings

I advise holding such meetings on various days and at times to accommodate the work schedule of many and then the pandemic hit so I'm here to say once again before any auction block marker is designed or before any demands for a museum are given any level of consideration please revert back to the original plans before the pandemic

and solicit more feedback from the descendant community and the Black African-American community.

And not just feedback from one or two, but of many.

Many of the descendants of the families whose ancestors were sold in Court Square

The Gillettes, the Hubbards, the Grangers and the Hearn are still right here in our city.

My ancestors had no voice in 1829, but seven generations later, the descendants do.

Our voices deserve to be heard and should be heard on any type of memorial.

Reparation theory states that it is up to those who were most affected by a historical injustice to be key amplified voices in determining what might be symbolic restorative actions.

So please, please, please reconvene the engagement process around these slave markers.

Thank you, Ms.

Sanders.

I'll just comment, as the person who sits for Council on the Historic Resources Committee, I really appreciate this feedback.

It certainly is in line with where the Historic Resources Committee has been situated and how it's recommended to former Acting City Manager, Mr. Blair.

And we just spoke last week during our annual meeting because it really was the pandemic that stopped that engagement process.

I was aware also that there were dates and there was a really robust engagement

that was being planned for the March timeframe.

And so I think that right now the committee is getting around trying to figure out, okay, what does that look like?

Because if this pandemic isn't going to be coming to a close and we're not going to find ourselves in face-to-face meetings in the coming months, we do feel that the committee does feel that it is time to evaluate what are some other ways that we can engage with the descendant community and more holistically in the shorter term.

And then, but we still believe that longer term, there is going to be have to be a more face-to-face engagement.

So

I will certainly pass that feedback on to the committee, which convenes again on Friday as part of its second part of its annual meeting.

Mayor Walker, Pastor Morgan has not joined us yet, so I'm going to go on to some of the other people who've raised their hand.

If you want to get in line, please click the raise hand icon.

in the Zoom webinar.

Council can hear from up to an additional 11 or 12 folks.

And first up is Don Gathers.

Don, you're on with Council.

Good evening, everyone.

I hope everyone's doing well.

Just a couple of things this evening.

Before we pass along any further consideration about spending millions of dollars on another parking garage,

I just wanted to point it out that it is my understanding that two of our homeless people died this past week.

So just let that sink in for more.

We're spending money on parking and that's where our concern is and not on our homeless population.

Before we throw another dime towards parking or towards bike lanes or towards trees and I don't want to upset anybody's apple cart because those things are important.

Let's take care of our people.

Let's take care of our people before we start to concern ourselves with the needs of the city.

The people are in need right now.

The people are hurting.

As I continue, this whole credit card fiasco is just a freaking mess.

Our city is on fire.

And you all were elected or hired, if you will, to be the firemen.

Even at the time that you came on, Council, there was a raging inferno.

You were expected to quell those flames, to put them out.

Not to fan them, not to throw additional logs on the fire, not to pour gasoline on an inferno.

Rather than being constructive and decent firemen, sadly, it seems like some of you all are arsonists.

If we can pour $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 into consultants to come in and give us ideas and rationalize what we need in the city, if we have citizens doing the work, it only makes sense to pay them as well.

This goes back to what I've been saying for years.

There is absolutely no reason why there is only one board or commission that has paid a stipend for the work that they do.

That is just ludicrous.

And it's time for it to stop.

Any citizen who volunteers his or her time should be compensated something for that volunteerism.

It should be recognized.

I don't know why the Planning Commission was set up that way, that they're the only ones who receive a stipend, but it's not proper, it's not fair at this point in time.

And if that was done, I think that this other issue never would have reared its ugly head.

But since it did,

And since apparently there were some who knew what was going on, there was a better way to handle it.

There was a different way it could have been attacked.

Mr. Boyles, I hope that you will come up with a concrete and solid framework as far as what the policy will be.

All right, great.

Good evening.

Hope all is well.

From your perspective, this is my first time being on this side.

You're my first time being at a council meeting in a while, so a little weird, virtual, but I think everybody's making the best of what they are.

I just had a couple of comments.

I just left the violence prevention meeting, which is being held

Well, I don't think I'm at liberty to say where the meetings are being held, but there were a slew of community members who are receiving some training in terms of how specifically to stop the violence, intervene in different ways, and furthermore, stand up for the community

There are individuals who have come from out of town far and wide to lend their time, as well as trusted community members who are, again, dedicating their time to ensure that the shootings stop, that the homicides stop, and that we have a safer community overall.

What I will admit, I am somewhat perplexed with the recent news headlines, and I understand very well sometimes things are written.

for a wide variety of different reasons.

But this credit card situation, one that I've been through personally when I was on council and now apparently I was under some kind of investigation of sorts, if you will, but

The fact that when you look at currently there is an effort to provide individuals with gift cards not only for doing community work but for lending their assistance to our community and that's being framed in a way as improper essentially because it may not fit the mold

that some individuals may be accustomed to is not only disheartening, but it's extremely disappointing.

We know that our community is one that has been ravaged not only by white supremacy and systemic oppression and racism, but we know our community is one that's been trying to say that we are trying to put our best foot forward in terms of creating a more equitable society.

We don't do that by consistently staying within the confines of how things have always been done.

We do that by thinking outside of the box.

And I just want to be very candid.

Just because someone doesn't do something in a manner in which you may do it or the manner in which you may believe that it should be done doesn't make it wrong and it definitely doesn't make it a crime.

I was on the council in which we never adopted a clear credit card policy specifically in terms of a limit per councillor and candidly to my recognition I don't remember us saying that we had to get certain permissions from each other as councillors or anything of that manner.

So what I've been seeing transpire with Mayor Walker is disappointing and I hope that we as a city and as a council not only can contribute to making our community a better place but we can all work better holistically.

I stayed under three minutes.

We have two additional hands raised right now, Tanisha Hudson and Emily Dreyfus.

Tanisha, you're on with the council.

So I'm just going to piggyback off what everybody else is saying.

First and foremost, let me start off by just saying this, because I'm not even talking to council.

I think all five of you are very disappointing at this point.

I'm speaking to the people of Charlottesville if they are listening and if they watch this later on.

What we're seeing happen to Mayor Walker is nothing more than what we saw happen to Dr. Richardson.

Let's go back to August 2019 when he tried to implement a credit card policy.

You didn't let him.

So all of this could have been prevented with Mayor Walker if you allowed that policy.

But let's go back even further.

2018 when the article was written about Nikyia, Wes, Kathy, Mike, Heather and all the credit card usage back in 2018.

Chris Cullinan knew what she was spending.

Your auditor knew what she was spending.

Everyone in finance, Chrissy Hamill.

I mean, I could go down the list of names.

Y'all all knew.

And you waited till now.

But see, this is Operation How White People Work.

This is what y'all do.

Y'all don't want her to run for counsel again.

And you want to try to find a way to shut her down.

If you wanted to shut her down, you should have did it a little bit better than this because you're making it look like this is just the type of shit that white people do.

Period.

That's how you're making it look.

And you did it to Dr. Richardson.

You did it to Wes Bellamy.

You did it to Al Thomas.

You did it to Maurice Jones.

It's a repeating cycle.

It's a repeating cycle whenever it's somebody of color.

It's a repeating.

And then you shut them down and you say, listen,

We're just going to go ahead and give you some money to shut you up.

We're just going to make you sign this non-disclosure agreement.

You don't want people to talk about what they've been through.

Well, here I am, a little black girl, and I'm going to talk about Brian Wheeler still got his job.

He denied me my First Amendment right because of Heather Hill.

He thought that I was going to come for her.

He's still sitting there pushing buttons for this meeting right now.

He's still got his job.

Mike Murphy completely lied.

He still had his job.

He retired.

Chief Baxter started a whole bunch of nonsense because he didn't get the money that he wanted to get out of the budget.

He still had his job and he retired.

They all got their retirement.

But y'all all bundled together and you, Heather, I know you pushing this effort.

I know you pushing this effort.

This is you.

This got you and Lisa Robertson written over it all day with a little sprinkle of Lloyd Snook because he an attorney too.

I know that y'all pushing us.

I know y'all are.

It's pathetic.

It's sad.

It's sad.

And y'all all look so bad.

And I told y'all before, I'm going to say it one more time because I got 15 seconds left.

I hope not nay five of y'all ever won a political career ever again.

Because the turmoil that you've been putting this city through in the last year and a half, everybody will remember.

Next up is Emily Dreyfus.

Emily, you're on the City Council.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and members of Council.

Thanks for this opportunity.

I am here to speak on behalf of the Legal Aid Justice Center at 1000 Preston Avenue and encouraging you to make sure that affordable housing for very low-income people

stays as your top priority or one of the very few top most priorities in the upcoming budget debates.

I was present for the presentation that you had during the earlier work session and I have a couple comments about that and I'm sure there will be more to come with the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

but primarily tonight I just wanted to say that level funding is really not enough and that's what this looks like.

I realize this is going to be a tough budget year but I do think the plan needs to be much more aggressive

level funding and adding administrative staff support does not go toward adequately at all toward meeting the needs that you all identified in the needs assessment back now two years ago, which was over three hundred three thousand three hundred people in the city alone who are in need of affordable housing solutions of

different sorts.

So I hope the affordable housing plan will go much further.

I also want to point out that we don't need to compare ourselves to other communities.

I think the city really needs to measure its achievements by what solves the needs within the community and thoroughly addresses racial inequities.

I appreciate that the consultants were very responsive to the input they got about increasing homeownership but one thing I really think the city needs to start is to pair up anti-displacement outreach to current black homeowners and increase tax relief and mortgage assistance in order to help prevent additional displacement and lastly I just want to keep

The word up about the fact that trickle-down housing, as people call it, really doesn't work.

That building housing that does not have deep affordability, especially, in my opinion, to address the needs of the very low-income people, people under 50% of the area median income, it's really not something that the city needs to be part of or incentivize and encourage because

More housing just results in more people.

It doesn't result in stopping displacement, and that's where the energy really should be focused.

Mayor Walker, we've now heard from eight speakers.

I do not see Pastor Morgan yet.

If anyone else would like to address council, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.

And Pastor Morgan might've been referring to the opportunity at the end of the meeting as well.

I wasn't sure about that.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

I'll just say in with regards to the credit card use, I made the decision to

have a public discussion about this memo that was sent to us because there have been instances in the past where things have been leaked.

And I knew what the past conversations about spending that no other counselor ever had to deal with, even counselor Bellamy,

until I got here.

And there was an effort once I arrived to figure out what I've stated in the past, where are typical weaknesses that people have?

I study history.

There is at no point that I would ever have a family member of mine have to read in the paper about me spending something that I shouldn't be spending or taking something that does not belong to me.

It became really clear once I released this memo that exactly what I thought would have happened had it been leaked occurred.

Where there is a segment of the population who is saying some of the same things that we've heard today.

and there's a very large percentage of the population who is saying, of course, she is doing something wrong.

Of course, she's not spending properly.

And so outside the memo, because the memo is out there and I've expressed these concerns before, there has to be a better

way for these conversations to happen.

I'm very concerned that according to my colleague, Councilor Hill, that part of the reason why people are not having these discussions with me

is because they about anything is because they are scared to have the conversations with me.

There isn't one staff member who can say, you may not like what I'm saying,

You might not think things that are a priority for me are an actual priority.

You may not want to focus on the things that I'm pushing as agenda items, but at no point, even when I know that you all don't agree with me, have I ever been disrespectful, unless disrespectful means fighting so that a population of people who've been oppressed, if you view those type of things as disrespectful.

So this memo receiving it was very hurtful to suggest that there are some kind of civil or criminal penalty, civil penalty or criminal procedure that could take place as a result of, in this case, less than $400 is more than insulting.

I've had to have conversations, not many, most of my family just called and said, oh, you know, not even surprised, but to have a conversation about my grandfather who thought there had been something wrong because he's older and that something was going to happen to me as a result of this.

And whether it had ever been released

if I released it or you all had leaked it the issues here are are very troubling and so I've already stated it not very clearly because I shouldn't have been necessarily doing a lot that particular day but I have

been clear about the rules that I was told was if you spend over $600 you need a W-9 and that you can't do anything over $10,000.

If you go back and look at all of my credit card transaction all that have been published besides maybe the last few months in 2020 wasn't a very active year because of the pandemic so there wasn't much to publish.

and I've answered these questions over and over again about about use and later on we're going to discuss having another work session and hopefully coming up with a actual policy but I hope and what I want to say is that that doesn't become that there's no flexibility and that there's 100% control

I said earlier, we had talked about each counselor having an individual budget.

I don't think anyone is saying we went over budget.

There's no way that we went over budget the last fiscal year for anything.

And again, had there just been questions

Even the gift card transactions that were talked about in this last, in the February 3 memo, I spoke directly to the finance director because I wasn't able to purchase the cards when I was trying to purchase them.

At no point did anyone say, hey, anything.

And that's problematic.

And to be a part of a government where

I have ignored so much since I've been here.

Heather, you can breathe deeply if you want to, but I'm addressing this.

Since I've been here, I walked down the hall sometimes before the pandemic and there are employees that don't even want to speak.

Employees that are turned the other way.

I've had some very difficult

not rude, but conversations with employees.

And even when I wasn't treated well, even in this position that apparently people often wanna say that I abused, I was still respectful to those employees.

I'm not gonna sit here and give examples, but I have those examples.

And to have my colleagues, I don't know who knew, I've asked in the past,

And as we had discussed earlier, I think that we're all of our goal is that we align on a policy that everyone is highly is aware of.

And it puts does not put our staffs in a position where they are having to review and approve any expenditures from any counselors.

And I believe that's where there is consensus.

Yes, but that was not your objective after this memo came up.

Your next email said we need to have a closed session.

To talk about a policy.

And also Snook sent an email talking about I don't have a personal slush fund.

That does not sound like either to people who are interested in solutions only.

I'm happy to share the email that I sent.

It acknowledges that we all want to be able to help our more vulnerable populations and those that are not able to have their voice at the table participate in the public dialogue.

But there are processes that we need to follow in order for that to happen or else we may collectively be facing some liabilities.

And so I think that our priority right now for our sake and for staff.

Are we facing a liability?

No, we're not.

I understand.

Obviously, if we're going to discuss it in detail, it's going to take us an hour or so, but we've got other business that other people are waiting for.

I was responding to people comments and to people who are listening to see what the comments are going to be.

And I'm going to address it now for the people who are watching and may not be watching at the end.

and as much as you all have been able to dictate, this will not be one of them.

about any of these policies.

I had to remind you back in March that you might wanna save my number because we would have a lot of conversations over the next year and nine months.

And I do remember Come up with what you deem important, what you want to talk about, as long as you understand that it's never going to include you monitoring me just because it is me and that we're doing policies that we need to do because they are proper.

That is two different things.

because again, that's a public discussion and I'm sure the comments that I've had that you and I've had this conversation with Sena also, there is a difference between you being racist

and if you want to own that, that is your business and me saying that your actions are upholding white supremacy and institutional racism.

They are different things and that's part of the things that we probably should discuss having a training on because I shouldn't have had to say that to anybody who ran in this city and is supposed to understand there is not one time

that I have said, Lloyd, you are a racist.

I have said that I don't think you would create a very different world than the world we're fighting right now.

You may not have called me a racist.

Well, show me.

And the meeting that you're talking about is a very public meeting.

This is a point of order.

I'm sorry.

There are other things that are important that I would like to discuss on this agenda for the public that is engaged.

in important discussions.

But as long as you understand when you're running behind the scenes, setting the scenes for a lot of these things that have happened over the first few months, that's when you should be trying to have public discussions.

Just because you all do them in the background, and I am up front, and I'm going to say it publicly, doesn't make you all better, Heather, or your actions better.

Just because they're undercover and people don't see them doesn't make them right.

and just because I'll address you all publicly instead of pretending one either that it didn't happen or that your actions are okay doesn't make me wrong.

So next up we have a break at eight which we're not there yet so we wasn't behind schedule for any item but we probably should take it now.

So we can come back at

All right, I'll call this meeting back to order.

Just one more quick comment.

Mr. Gathers made a point about a citizen or two citizens who died over the weekend.

I hadn't heard anything about that.

I am asking, but that's something that we definitely want to figure out how

and what we can do to make sure that we can save people lives if there's anything that we can do.

All right, next up, we have a public hearing on the fiscal year 2021 CDBG Substantial Action Plan.

Amendment and the reprogramming of 2019 CDBG funds for COVID-19 public services.

So tonight we will be discussing the CARES Act and the Charlottesville CDBG program.

This item does involve a public hearing and a substantial action plan amendment for fiscal year 2020-2021.

According to the CARES Act, some CDBG program rules are modified for COVID emergency relief activities.

So this includes CDBG 2019, 2020, and CDBG-CV, so CDBG COVID funds, which are all subject to the modification.

On January 14, 2021, the City of Charlottesville was found to be noncompliant for the second consecutive year due to CDBG timeliness expenditure requirements.

Corrective measures and sanctions were temporarily suspended during 2020 and for the first three months of 2021 just based on government restrictions, closures, shelter-in-place restrictions, and social distancing guidance.

HUD determined that all entitlement grantees across the nation had factors beyond their reasonable control, which impacted carrying out CDBG activities in a timeliness manner.

However, now, HUD is beginning to resume back to normal operations.

HUD noted that the city of Charlottesville is lacking timely performance as a deficiency.

The city is now subject to the department's timeliness sanction policy and HUD will conduct its final timeliness test on May 2, 2021.

HUD and city staff met virtually through various different means.

to discuss options that we have and HUD has recommended resources to assist the city to reach the May 2, 2021 timeliness deadline test.

City staff has identified an immediate program for funding to solve the city's timeliness concerns by May 2.

The city has unexpended 2019 CDBG entitlement funds totaling $244,950.82 from the delayed Belmont Franklin Street sidewalk activity.

These funds can be reprogrammed back into the 2020-2021 CDBG program budget to fund a COVID-related public service activity.

Future CDBG funding sources can later repay the Belmont Franklin Street sidewalk construction funding or construction activity once the delays have been lifted.

To meet the timeliness deadline test by May 2nd, reprogrammed funds must be spent on within the next three month period.

Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, so CRHA, CDBG-CV3 application was previously partially funded at the requested $320,000 application to fund a COVID rental relief program for CRHA residents.

Staff and HUD identified CRHA's COVID rental relief application as an eligible activity for the city to quickly spend down the CDBG 2019 funds to meet timeliness requirements.

CRHA's application went through the public participation process, received recommendation from funding from the CDBG and Home Task Force and Planning Commission, which allows the city to save time from having to undergo a new round of requests from proposals.

City staff confirmed with CRHA staff on CDBG time list requirements to ensure HUD federal requirements will be met.

All public housing residents are income eligible for CDBG program support.

Funds are proposed to provide immediate COVID-19 rental assistance to public housing residents and cover rental payments.

Approximately 313 households will be assisted through this program.

Thank you.

If you'd like to speak to Council on this topic, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

You'll have up to three minutes.

We have two people with their hands up right now.

First is Brandon Collins.

Brandon, you're on with Council.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I am a lifelong resident of Charlottesville, and I'm also a staff member for FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents.

FAR is the federally recognized resident council and resident advisory board for public housing in Charlottesville.

And we would like to just express our support for CRHA's application for rental relief

through this CDBG process.

As you know, COVID has been extremely difficult, particularly for our lowest income residents and rent relief is certainly a win-win for residents and for CRHA.

and helps them continue to keep the bills paid and it helps residents continue to be housed and be safe.

So I highly encourage you to approve this and I would just also offer over at FAR, we greatly appreciate the mayor's firm attention to issues regarding COVID and issues of public housing in Charlottesville.

Next up is Peter Krebs.

Peter, you're on with council.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Krebs.

I live on Tufton Avenue here in the city.

I was on the Belmont CDBG task force, but originally I came up with that Franklin Street sidewalk project.

First of all, I'd like to just express my support to council and staff to definitely make sure that those monies are kept in Charlottesville and get into the community.

Absolutely.

I will say that that project sort of seems to have fallen through the cracks between Tierra and, you know, Aaron's transition.

So

That project is critically important.

Lots of residents, really tons of kids live in that area.

The Franklin sidewalk project is essential, and I just hope that the city does not let that fall permanently off the radar.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

So we'll close the public hearing.

Mr. Tack, I just want to reiterate what I was reading in the memo.

I think what you said just in response to Mr. Krebs that the intention is that when funding becomes available in the future that it will go return back to this project.

Yeah, actually, we might be better able to answer some of the delays.

They were a lot to do with stormwater engineering.

Tim, do you want to

I saw him on there earlier.

Yes, so a future CDBG funding source will be put back into the Franklin Street Pot.

The majority of the delays were due to contractor work.

The design, stormwater engineering, and COVID were the three big ones.

Right now, we're having a lot of issues achieving right-of-way

Yeah, right away is our big concern.

We have reached out to the Belmont Carlton Neighborhood Association and the Belmont CDBG Task Force with help on this and they are pretty motivated to help help us help the city with right of way on this.

Can you hear me at this point?

Yes.

Okay, very good.

Yeah.

The stormwater management has been quite challenging in that it's right against a floodplain that in some cases is actually in the street, the floodplain line.

Linear projects don't lend themselves well to stormwater management in that they're not able to capture all of their

runoff very well.

The city has been struggling with that on a number of projects and has appeared to turn the corner in the way they treat particularly water quality to the point where now sidewalk projects can be more easily compliant with regulations.

The other aspect of the right-of-way acquisition, last summer we had sent out certified letters to

all of the property owners that were impacted and received really only two responses from the, I believe, seven that were sent out.

We sent additional letters out, again, certified mail, and we have heard back from three more.

So we feel as if we're making some progress there.

It's a matter really just of continuing to push on it.

I think that

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

No.

So we'll

Move this to the March 1st Consent Agenda if there's agreement.

All right.

Thanks.

All right.

Next up, we have a local COVID ordinance status review.

Madam Mayor, this issue is one that we have addressed.

number of times, beginning with last July when we passed a COVID ordinance that was intended, I think, to keep us pretty much in sync with the governor and with Albemarle County so that people would know

whether they're in the city or the county what what they can and cannot do.

The issue has come to us recently because it's been called to our attention particularly by folks in the Little League that in fact this is this has not been

successful in trying to keep the city and the county aligned.

Of course, our little leagues, we have three little leagues that are active.

They draw from both the city and the county.

They practice in both the city and the county.

They play games in both the city and the county.

Some of them play games, play some games in the city and some games in the county.

So it's a source of

of a lot of confusion.

The confusion right now is that under at least some interpretations and the interpretation they've been using, although they're allowed to practice in the city, they are not allowed to play their games in the city.

And certainly McIntyre Little League plays at McIntyre Park.

That's in the city.

Monticello Little League plays in Quarry Road Park.

That's in the city.

Central Little League plays in Penn Park which is city property but it is actually in the county so trying to figure out which jurisdictional rules apply has been rather difficult they they asked us please to come up with a a decision on how they might be able to to do this and a couple of suggestions have been made by Ms.

Robertson

The first suggestion was simply an amendment to the ordinance and the amendment to the ordinance would really just accomplish one thing.

It would change the definition of gathering to eliminate, among other things, the definition of or to eliminate the specification of a sporting event.

And at that point, I think her interpretation is that we would then be back to where sporting events such as this would be under the control of the governor's

orders which would allow not only the games to go forward but also a limited number this is for outdoor games a limited number of spectators two per participant or something like that the other possibility I have suggested back in December and council voted against this three to two I had suggested simply repealing our ordinance so that we didn't have to deal with this

every month, every two months to try to keep in sync with what the governor is doing.

So we have these two proposals.

One would apply simply to the question of gathering and sporting events.

The other would simply repeal the ordinance and put us under the control of the governor.

So that's where we stand.

Okay.

So that is the discussion.

That's my introduction to the discussion.

I'll lean at that.

Happy to discuss the issue further.

Maybe Ms.

And I'll just say quickly, just for counsel to note, I was one of those three opposed to the changes initially.

And I spoke with JJ Davis earlier.

And since that conversation, they have released where they are students are having more restrictive measures because of their numbers.

And so

I know that there are things that are all of our families want to do and but I just hope whatever we do that we think about not just the

that families desire to resume their normal activities and also think about the employees that will be impacted.

And if any of those employees are not full time benefited staff that will be brought back as a result of us making these changes that we need to have a very serious and in depth conversation about the fact that

These are people who may or may not have even had a job since they were laid off here without having access to vaccinations, without having medical insurance, if they are brought back on because we opened something up that we are putting them in very high-risk situations and we're not giving them much to protect themselves.

I don't know who is at the Little League fields, but I know there have been conversations not just about the Little League fields, but the swimming pools and all of that stuff.

And they are very high risk environments.

And let me say, we have in fact gotten a lot of letters, emails also about the Jefferson Swim League and in particular about the city swordfish team that practices and swims at Washington Park.

I would say I don't know that there is very much

of a requirement of really staff time in associated with Little League have to, I guess, empty the trash cans a couple times a week, something like that.

There clearly would be a much greater involvement of staff

and in an indoor setting under some circumstances perhaps uh for uh for the city swordfish all the practice of Washington Park I don't know whether they ever swim indoors but in any event uh the the governor the amendment to the ordinance would simply read gathering includes but is not limited to parties celebrations or other social events whether they occur indoors or outdoors

and it's the governor's rules that apply as to what the standards would be for indoors or outdoors.

This would simply this amendment would simply take sporting events out of the situation of being specially treated by Charlottesville.

I'll say I also completely agree with your comment about wanting to make sure that

if we've got more parks and rec employees particularly ones who may be working at the pools and so on that those parks and rec employees need to be treated fairly and they need to be treated with some sensitivity given the risks

to which they may be exposed.

I think most of us on Council have expressed at some point or another concern about not understanding why we have such a thing as part-time temporary employees who have been part-time temporary employees for 10 years or more.

There are some aspects of all these policies that need to have sense made out of them, and they need to be

and the sense needs to be brought with a sense of fairness to the employees because after nine months or so, I think you begin to think, hey, why am I not a full-time employee?

Why am I not getting the protections and the benefits of other full-time employees?

So, I agree.

So I'm thinking about if we if we do Little League and then are we just saying if there are programs that the city isn't running if I'm sure that Mr. Brown will be asked about like basketball, volleyball, like there are other things that the city also participates in.

And I don't know what that list looks like.

And so Miss Robertson may be considered or is it just

So if you adopt the ordinance, the attachment A, which is to revise the wording of gathering, what you would do is bring yourselves into the

sort of parallel with the governor's orders.

And so recreational sports would be allowed within the city generally.

But as to city-run programs, if the city wishes to have different rules or bring

different sports.

So the city organization could regulate which sports open up and when internally because that would be a more restrictive provision than would otherwise be allowed.

So this ordinance would just say we're deferring to the governor's executive order on the issue of recreational sports.

I note that Mr. Brown is on the call here, so to speak.

Yes, and thank you.

Yes, Little League is just the start of it.

I mean, as soon as if it is approved that they can have games, we do expect that, you know, adult softball, basketball, volleyball, pools, all those same conversations, camps, everything, you know, this probably will be the trigger of what not we are going back to more of our full programs coming this spring.

Oh, sure I do.

Yes, ma'am.

I do have concerns.

My kids also played new sports, so I do have concerns on the health of the athletes and the coaches.

I do have concerns on the other side of the coin of how harmful is it if they sit out another season.

You know, so I don't have the perfect answer, as none of us do.

I think, you know, just personally, I'm probably, you know, my daughter did play varsity basketball this year.

It was a risk that we decided to take.

The season did get shut down.

Luckily, she wasn't positive.

But, you know, just me personally, I think we're making those personal decisions of,

you want your kid in there or not and I'm kind of just reiterating what's already been said to us probably it's getting almost daily and again with all the sports they're all different facilities all our different programs and when you kind of say you know you pick one or the other

The other ones are really jumping.

That's not fair.

Why do they get to do it?

We don't get to do it.

So we've got a really good mess going on right now.

Don't quite sure know the answer.

And to the mayor's point, we do know we do need to work on the way in which our part-time temp staff, seasonals, whatever you want to call them, are handled, categorized, and benefited.

and we'll be glad to sit down to a work session or anything council would like to be involved with that.

Thank you.

We already have complications in the city because soccer through Soka is taking place in game form.

on city fields from their agreement.

And so I think we're already kind of in that realm of complexity.

And I think it's a slippery slope to not like open it up to something.

I mean, I think my daughter does play soccer, full disclosure there.

And she did play on the city field.

And that's what made me realize that that was allowed.

And I was confused as to why they weren't able to have their games in the city for the baseball side.

and my son plays in a lacrosse clinic, which isn't games, but and I just can say the benefit for my children to be able to have that outlet right now when they're basically at home 24-7 has been a risk that our family has personally decided to take because we just felt like the benefits far outweighed the risks for their mental health and just getting out there and having some kind of social interaction.

And so I would be

Hypocrite not to express my support for allowing for more children to be able to be playing safely in their sports.

And I agree that I think the indoors is a whole different ballgame.

I know Mr. Blair was considering that over the winter months.

I certainly understood the risks that come with that.

But I think especially when we think about the games for this sport are going to be in the March into April timeframe.

And that still is a ways off and just where we are in terms of making progress with vaccines and

Again, just not something that they can limit attendance to.

I just feel that opening up some of these opportunities that are less risk, I'm in support of.

And so I would be in support of making an amendment.

And I think it's also important that we're consistent with Albemarle.

There's just so much crossover for the kids that are playing.

I guess my thoughts on it, you know, I think I'd, you know, tend to support the amendment as well just because I think, you know, we're

We're entering, you know, a period and that's only going to continue over the coming months where there's just a lot of confusion.

I mean, we've got schools returning to in person.

You've got some private outdoor recreational events in the city.

You've got the county doing more outdoor recreational events.

And I just think it'll be important to try to get our policies in alignment because I think

to the extent that there's confusion over a mismatch of what exactly the policy is on a city-owned field versus a private one versus you're in the county versus what the governor's order are.

That confusion I think makes, you know, in and of itself create an issue with compliance because people are just sure what the policies are.

I think they're more effective if there's more alignment and clarity about exactly what they are.

In addition, I think by, you know,

Aligning with the governor's orders on these outdoor recreational activities, it's not just opening everything up.

I mean, it's still governed by the governor's restrictions.

And should the situation of cases change, those could become more restrictive as necessary.

So there are still some restrictions and procedures in place.

even after just amending it to be in alignment with the governor's orders.

I think we also have to recognize the governor's last order, which he issued at the end of January, which still keeps us able to have sporting events with up to a certain number of spectators and so on, was written at a time when he says that Virginia's positivity rate was 12.5 percent.

It's now down in the 9 percent range.

and in Charlottesville, it's about 2.3%.

In Albemarle, it's about 3.4%.

At the University of Virginia, the recent spike in cases, but they've now, they're up around 1.4, 1.5% in positivity rate.

There is little evidence at this point that suggests that children are themselves a sort of a super spreader

or that child activities are super spreader events.

Admittedly, the science is not real clear on this, but and it's sort of how do you prove a negative?

Well, what we have not seen is much, much suggestion that children, particularly under the age of 12 or 14 or so, it's older teens get to be more of a problem, but younger kids are not much of a problem for the spread of disease.

My personal reason for wanting to simply repeal our ordinance is that the governor can act faster than we can act and can act in consultation with people who know a lot more epidemiology than as far as I know anybody on the city staff possesses.

But if you all don't want to go that way,

Certainly the attachment A, the amendment that Ms.

And I just would like to, the city's basketball team had to shut down their season because of COVID.

I think before, was it the last two games or last game?

And UVA, what they just released earlier says all in-person events and gatherings on or off grounds as defined by policy section 045 are prohibited and should be moved online.

These restrictions take effect at 7 p.m.

today.

We recognize that many of you already have plans this evening.

Please either counsel them or move them online.

This includes social gatherings, clubs, organizational functions, and other in-person interactions that do not meet the exclusions set in the same section.

And they have a lot of other bullet points on here.

So if something is happening, if they are taking those measures at this time.

No.

I guess I'm more comfortable lining up with Albemarle, just to make it clearer.

All right, I can make a motion then.

All right.

I guess I'm just doing it to the amendment, Mr. Maugerson.

So I move that we amend the current ordinance.

Yes.

You would make a motion.

Yes.

So I move that we amend the current ordinance to clarify for recreational sports.

Go ahead.

I can just read it off the top of the title of it.

At least I'm sorry, you're delayed.

Yeah, or as set forth

Okay.

I move that we amend the current ordinance as set forth in attachment A in the agenda materials.

And I will second the motion.

I will note from Councillor McGill's benefit that the amendment that we're proposing basically tracks the Albemarle County language.

And I just want to make sure that like Mr. Brown said that this will start a chain reaction possibly that we are not saying that we want the

internally or externally activities open just because of this ordinance.

Will that be a further discussion?

I think it would be clear that the Parks and Rec Department would still be empowered to make their decisions on perhaps a sport by sport basis.

but that we as a council don't have to be involved in that decision.

So I want to make sure that we know that people have been calling since the pandemic started.

And so based on what you said, it would be up to Mr. Bowles, Mr. Brown, to say yay or nay every time.

And I don't think that's fair.

We were just talking about that earlier, what is fair to place the burden on staff.

So the alternative.

The alternative would be for council to get involved in deciding volleyball, yes, basketball, no, soccer, yes, softball, no.

And that doesn't make any sense to me.

I mean, I think the issue has to be an administrative one for the city manager and the parks and rec director and to understand how they're going to address budgetary concerns.

How are they going to staff what they need to staff?

Can they afford to staff what they would need to staff?

No, we approve the budget for them to work.

So we know that there were already issues with maintaining staffing of people who were most vulnerable in the city and that we already said we don't have the money to do that and we fire people.

So to say if you can figure out how to hire people, you can hire them back.

But yeah, they may still not have health insurance or they may not have access to the vaccine because they're not considered essential when we're making them essential is not fair.

Well, that's not a part of this proposed amendment to the COVID ordinance, but I do agree it's a conversation that needs to be had.

Okay, I just want to that's what I'm asking for clarification on just because of the statement made that we will have a broader conversation about what the city can afford to open back up and if we are saying everything that we will then say commit to fixing a problem we haven't fixed in decades.

because it wouldn't be fair to those employees to bring them back in very high risk situation because our citizens want to take the chance.

We are then also saying that they are choosing to take the chance and what they're probably choosing to do is to earn money they need to take care of themselves.

not that they wanna be in the high risk environment.

It gives you just said that Mr. Brown could decide and you thought that it was administrative.

All right.

Ms.

Thomas.

No.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

Thank you, that carries four to one.

All right.

Next up, we have the Regional Equity Joint Memorandum of Understanding.

Good evening, everybody.

This is Kaki Dimick, Director of Human Services.

you all were introduced to this MOU a couple of times electronically and then at the joint meeting between the county of Albemarle UVA and the city on October 28, 2020 there was pretty broad widespread support for the concept of the MOU which is based on recent MOUs in both 2016 and 2017

between the city and the county in the areas of transportation, education, environment, and housing.

This continues that tradition and includes the University of Virginia in that.

One of the comments that we heard most strongly at that meeting was the desire for immediate action-oriented activities related to the MOU as soon as

it was adopted.

The county is considering the MOU tomorrow at their regular meeting and I believe the University of Virginia is considering it this week as well.

The MOU expresses a commitment to providing quality services to all members of the community promoting an equitable and welcoming community by increasing accessibility promoting unity and honoring diversity acknowledges a shared responsibility for advancing equity and inclusion and recognition of collaboration as a means for achieving meaningful results.

It specifies that we will evaluate current programs and policies and modify to address any deficiencies found.

but we'll collectively invest in programs and initiatives that will set measurable goals and monitor progress of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, use available tools to support data-informed decision-making in all three organizations, deepen our commitment to improved inclusivity and equity in all the communities we serve, evaluate our services and relationships specifically through an equity lens, identify underserved communities through outreach and community partnership,

implement programs and develop partnerships that close opportunity gaps, work to achieve alignment in both priorities and strategies employed to improve regional outcomes and designate resources including staff to promote the success.

In keeping with what we perceived as our charge after the joint meeting in October, Kevin McDonald from the University of Virginia, Siri Russell from the county and I have met on several occasions to talk about potential initiatives that would move these commitments back and

We've both explored what was already in process or in motion in any one of our organizations and also done some quick feasibility studies to look at costs and timelines.

Under consideration, initially, we include improving mental health services, expanding financial opportunities, increasing human service and human rights programming, adopting a regional tribal consultation policy and investing in permanent supportive housing.

There's a long list of possibilities for us.

in terms of this collaboration, we'll have the opportunity to talk again on Friday at a meeting between the city, county and University of Virginia staff.

As soon as we have what we think are some viable possibilities for you, we'll come back to our respective organizations and present them as options for moving forward to action as quickly as possible.

It was not.

The genesis of this effort actually began with a brainchild from Siri Russell after she worked on the equity MOUs early on around transportation and economic development as part of the county and thought

There is enough conversation happening in all three organizations around equity.

What would happen if we joined forces together?

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

Any discussion?

And I'll just say thank you all for the work that you all have done on this.

And I'm hoping that we're able to accomplish some of these goals, all three organizations working together.

Ms.

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

Thank you.

That carries 5-0.

And we talked about this at the last meeting and former counselor Bellamy talked about it earlier.

He attended the training today to observe and figure out he's been working with

McDonnell of UVA, too, to try to also get support for the, you know, for the community members.

And again, we all know that we had an uptick in shots fired, I think, starting in November of maybe 2019 that went on until, well, there were some shots fired on the

on the website from the past week also.

But I think everyone would be in agreement that there has been a considerable reduction even without these official trainings and the organizations being, you know, official, that there's been a great effort between three different set of individuals to figure out how to

you know communicate with each other individuals who did not necessarily get along in the past who have come together to solve this you know major community issue having to have that many conversations I know I've been told by some of the men who are a part of building this with mothers

and sisters and brothers and girlfriends and kids about family members' lives being taken has been devastating.

And I've said before, this isn't new, but the way and the frequency that it was happening was

was definitely new.

We have all can make a list of people who have been

killed since we were young.

And it's one of the things that has always been why this work has always been a passion for me because I've seen like the devastation that it plays for a long time and family members who never recover from losing family members.

So this is definitely the way things were happening a few months back is definitely something that no one deserves.

to go through.

And so I'm glad that all of my colleagues were definitely supportive.

I know there have been many conversations with the community members trying to figure out how to be supportive of this initiative now and moving forward.

So I know that everyone is very thankful for that.

My tablet just went out.

I'm trying to give specifics.

So this would, I don't see, and I don't have in front of me the total, but I would like to tell the public the amount that we're talking about.

Ms.

Ryan was at the

So I left it as blank so you all could decide that.

I know there were a couple of different

Mayor Walker, in your first proposal, I believe there was something about $14,000, $6,000, then $10,000 coming later, possibly needed.

So I thought it was going to be $30,000.

That's where I came up with the $30,000 at one point when I was in the email.

No, the amount was they had raised $16,000 from

other organizations, $14,000 we would cover, $30,000 total for the training.

And then there was additional $6,000 requests for stipends for the participants.

two people attending the training that would not receive stipends.

That would be former Counselor Bellamy and then one of the Home to Hope employees are also attending and will not receive stipends.

Participants, but those individuals.

I thought that was... But the funding we're allocating, whatever number amount, is just going to the 5013C, and then they are going to determine how to distribute the funds to support the training needs.

But I wanted to make sure that that was clear.

I do have one request.

They thought that they had meals covered for the three days.

and they don't, we were able to get late today the, you know, the, I guess whoever had agreed to do that, but there is to see if we would be amendable to amending that $20,000 and adding a, you know,

adding additional three days at $160 per day for 20 people, $8 per person.

Mm-hmm.

And so the training is either, you know, either direct or indirect payments, sorry, sorry, needs to support this training.

And so I think we probably should be a little more specific.

So at 20,000, whenever she's saying 20,000, and then the meals is certainly part of the training.

Yeah, so it would be $20,480.

What?

No, $20,480.

Did I say $4,000?

No.

Yeah.

That's all they need.

I'm fine with that.

I was trying to give them more.

Okay.

All right, so that's the amount that would go into the motion.

It'd be 20,480.

I move we draft a resolution allocating city council's strategic initiatives funding to support the Interrupt the Violence Training Program provided to city residents.

Second.

Any further discussion or questions?

All right, Ms.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

That carries five.

Live from my den.

We can see you and hear you.

and Rachel Lloyd, the chair of historic resources committees, I think, trying to.

And she's on as well.

Beautiful.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, y'all.

How are you tonight?

The last Jeff Warner, I'm your preservation and design staff within neighborhood development services.

And last September, you all had asked the

District Resources Committee to review and make recommendations on the policies and the process for the honorary street designation program that the city has, I think, had for some time.

The committee discussed the matter at its regular meetings on October 9, 2020, November 13, 2020, and briefly on December 11, 2020.

and I apologize the letters a little late we had a snafu and and and how it got sent up but either way that you have a letter attached to the staff report with some additional notes that summarizes the historic resources committee their discussions some recommendations some thoughts both on the policy and the program and also on

you would ask some thoughts on some of the individual applications that you had gotten and I also included in this staff report just a brief reference to I know that Mr. Brown in Public Works was looking at various options so there's a graphic in the staff report just the idea being that the signs that

the honorary names that were posted on top of the street signs that there's there's been some confusion so I'll address that but they were looking at it independently of what district resources committee did and not anything wrong with what they recommended but I incorporated that here by reference and I think he may be available this evening also to discuss that but I have Rachel Lloyd here again the chair with the district resources committee

I guess the question would be, and have you, if you have any questions about what the committee offered, Ms.

Lloyd can certainly discuss those with you and that was the intent here.

I didn't think we needed to go through and read it and maybe just have a conversation led by council.

So with that, Mayor Walker, hand it over to you and Ms.

All right, thank you.

I want to second that and note that this is the sort of deliberate deliberation that I think we were hoping for when we sent this over to the Historic Resource Commission and I'm glad to receive it.

I have one question about the designation for Henry Martin Way.

just because it was recommended to us to approve it.

And then in the notes, there's comment from two commission members who had just raised concerns that unlike the other requests that one did not come from residents living on the street and did not have engagement with the individuals living in that neighborhood.

you know majority of the committee voting to approve it or was there further kind of discussion or consideration um because I just know that's the only one where there were some notes expressing um all right well let me give a I'll give a clarification and I hand it off to Rachel I was actually at my my my son's they finally had this college graduation in November so we I was not at this meeting that they had but just to be clear uh you know the historic resources committee um to to my knowledge has never been directly involved with the street naming process so

Sure.

Well, there were nuances to all of the applications and suggestions that the committee had to improve the process.

And so some of the conversation that came out of the Henry Martin application is reflected in the additional recommendations that we provided to counsel, including the recommendation for applicants to

look for letters of support from descendants or from neighbors for future applications.

It wasn't 100% clear to us that that had occurred or had not occurred for the Henry Martin application.

It wasn't indicated strongly in the application package.

Some of the other applications did have several letters of recommendation from members of the community or neighbors or descendants.

Anyway, a couple of members of the committee just wanted to make sure that council was aware of the debate that had occurred around that particular application.

The sense was and I think that

and I was there to kind of liaise, I didn't participate in the dialogue, was that we were asking them to both look at the process, but also look at the applications that were current.

And I think it was kind of challenging to kind of handle both at once, because I think had the process been reflective of what the recommendations are, the assessment of all the applications might be different, you know, moving forward.

But I think there was just a sensitivity around all these applications were submitted during a process that it was already established.

And so in parallel, you're asking us to

established what makes it recommendations for a new process and how it will be evaluated.

But you're not also asking us to look at these specific requests.

And so I think it's up to Council to decide if we want to actually look, look at these recommendations that they're giving in terms of the process and then look through the lens of those recommendations relative to these, what has been applied for so far.

And so I'm not sure what the scope of what we want to accomplish tonight, but I do know that there has been interest in Councilor McGill and I've discussed at some point after budget cycle.

It might be worth us, you know, also just convening with historic resources committee on a more broader scale to talk about like with their mission and their scope is because over the next few years, I can see a lot of important decisions being made on this front.

And I think it's going to be helpful for them to have clarity around

you know what what the direction is from Council for their work it's not so much a much more broader conversation but for now I think there is a lot in front of us and I'm not sure how we want to process those recommendations and have to maybe then turn that into you know a policy of sorts for how we're going to evaluate names I don't think we're going to accomplish all that tonight by any means but I think this is just a way to kind of introduce

the output coming from the committee and where they landed on some of the current applications there are, but I think that it would be their recommendation also just to consider the procedural changes in light of making any final decisions.

Is that right, Ms.

I believe that is a fair representation of the committee's general opinion about that.

And that was a hard ask request from them anyway, because it was a very, you know, contentious issue around the names that we kind of threw in their lap.

So and that's why I just recommended that even if we wanted them to look at the policy and change it for the future, this is something that we should have

handled instead of sending it on, you know, in the in the first place.

So I would recommend that in the future when we know we have these topics that have a lot of community feedback and that's going to land, you know, end up back with us anyway, that we should do that work if they had if any advisory board hasn't been a part of the process the entire

the entire time.

I just don't think it was fair to them.

So that's the first thing.

And then I know in terms of especially Mr. Alexander, the Black History Pathway is something that he was particularly interested in us voting on during Black History Month.

And so if there is a way that we can make

I would say, you know, I'm definitely comfortable with that and comfortable with the recommendations in general as well, particularly like these immediate ones, but then the more like mid to long term piece of like

Having like a commission that looks at the city as a whole, engaging with the Monica Nation, looking, you know, those things around looking at like a permanent state marker for Gregory Swanson, etc.

And sort of in line with the Blue Ribbon Commission.

Right.

Foundation.

Yeah.

So Miss Robertson is there if there's agreement to move forward tonight is because we don't have this listed as we just has it have it as a no vote or in discussion.

We don't even have it as a no vote, just a discussion.

So long as it doesn't require a public hearing, I suppose you all could make a motion to amend

your agenda and add it as a voting item.

What specifically would you like to vote on, though?

Yeah, so I think the recommendation to approve the following name request, there are five names with the

Street Recommendations there.

I'm sorry.

I was going to say we might have this week, huh?

Oh, go ahead.

As the other options are we're going to have a closed meeting for those interviews.

So we could have a resolution that we read in an open session.

I'm just thinking about other options you might have this week to take care of this.

I do have some pause just in general that we would take action on something that we didn't say we're going to take action on because it was identified as a report.

So that's fine if we do it later this week.

Are we gonna do all of them except item four?

So we're doing one, two, three, and five.

What are we asking staff to prepare?

I don't know what ones were identified in the application.

and I don't know what anybody might have in mind as the street that is something closer to the street's name for other sister cities.

I frankly think

I'm not a fan of just having just bringing it up at the earliest possible meeting, again, because this is something that had a fair amount of public comment on and people wanted to talk about it.

And I assume that they're going to still want to talk about it.

And I don't understand why we can't just take it up at our first meeting in March.

I don't disagree about the timeline in general.

Okay.

I can understand that.

That might be it.

And that is a specific proposal that had specific public comment attached to it.

I'm good with that.

Black History Month, yeah, sure.

I'm fine with that as well as additionally fine.

And I do think that the number five, the Byers Snooki way, you know, we started talking about that and honoring a Mr. Byers who had been the swim coach and passed away.

I don't think there and that is the area around the Washington Park pool.

So I don't think there would be much changes happening.

with that location because it wanted to honor where he spent a lot of time at the spaces he spent a lot of time.

I guess one of the questions that we should at least acknowledge is whether the concerns that were raised by the two dissenting members concerning Henry Martin Way, whether those are concerns that we want to listen to, whether we want to follow, whether we want to essentially overrule.

I mean, they're legitimate concerns.

Whether they carry the day is a different issue.

but I think we need to at least acknowledge the issues that Jordy Yeager and Jeff Varner, who is it?

Yeah.

Well, I would say I guess I would be in support of Mayor Walker's recommendation of

you know this week moving forward with one in five in you know it's those others which had really the questions about either the street location the level of engagement Gregory Sonson way there's also some question about like a permanent state marker so it seems like those ones you know could have greater community engagement or work some of these things out but certainly one in five I mean it seems like

At the first meeting in March.

Okay.

I don't think unless we just want to have a formal resolution and post it and that's fine or we could do it now.

If the choice is between doing it now and doing it at a specially called meeting a few days from now, let's just go ahead and do it now.

So I move that we approve the honorary street naming rec.

I think we first have to change the agenda, sorry.

No, not changing names.

Honorary street names.

Honorary names.

Honorary names.

Honorary naming at the recommendation of the Historic Resources Committee

Between Preston Avenue and Henry Avenue.

I would, if you don't mind, I would not use whatever, refer to the formal applications.

I don't, if that were submitted, there may have been some paraphrasing or whatever.

However, she had submitted it for buyers.

And request that staff look at the original application for the correct spelling of buyer Snooki.

Okay.

Ms.

Legal, we covered everything?

Well, you can certainly do that by a motion so the procedure is lawful.

Hopefully the motion is clear enough to make a record of what's been approved.

Do you want me to rephrase it?

No, I think unless Jeff and Rachel need clarification, I think we can

craft a resolution that will do that and give it to Ms.

And this will be processed through Public Works, but I'll certainly communicate with them what you all have said tonight.

I've been observing.

It's been noted.

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

He's referring to the location.

Okay.

Okay.

Dr. Sandane.

Also, that motion was to amend the agenda.

So we also need a vote.

Yeah.

So we're doing that now.

All right.

Ms.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

So let me just ask one question to clarify.

Are you simply doing this through a motion or is the motion to prepare written resolution reflecting the naming that you're referencing?

We were doing the motion tonight.

Okay, so you don't need a resolution.

You're just going to vote on it and approve it by the motion.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, please.

I move that we approve naming the honorary street naming of Black History Pathway on 4th Street Northwest between West Main Street and Preston Avenue and Byers Snooki Way on 10th Street Northwest between Preston Avenue and Henry Avenue as honorary street names.

Ms.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

At that time would we also want to then

All right.

Mr. Bowles, is that you, you good to go with that?

All right.

Next up, we have the capital improvement plan projects continued from the February 3rd, 2021 budget work session and the February 9th, 2021 planning commission hearing.

So this is the discussion of whether we were going to staff questions.

Do we have a clear...

Well, so last week, I know that some of us met because the newer counselors really hadn't gotten a lot of background on two of the projects.

And so just a multitude of staff, a lot of them from Mr. Brown's team, as well as the budget team, were really generous with their time and speaking with counselors at length about both the West Main Street projects history, as well as the status of the school since the

for the schools in large part, Mayor Walker and I have been part of those conversations and those work groups.

And then obviously a lot of discussion has been happening about the parking garage as part of the CIP.

And I know that Mr. Boyles has met with Mr. Richardson at the county and Mr. Engel joined him.

And my understanding and I'll let Mr. Boyles kind of update but was that there's just some more information that we're going to be kind of processing.

And so, um,

I all other counselors speak, but I, there certainly is a lot of still unknowns when we think about going out into the future of the CIPs, especially when we think about schools and not knowing what the scope of what they're going to be.

And also thinking about the parking deck situation and what options we may have, but, um, I'll let Mr. Boyle just kind of chime in based on his, his interactions as well as other staff, but I, that's just kind of where I see things are still

So are we still at the point where we are?

So I understand the information we're waiting on for schools.

Are we saying we're going to seek that information?

Are we still going out for the RFP for the schools?

And are we still

No, that's going ahead.

It was just updating, giving the other counselors a little background on the schools and the facility statuses and maintenance, and they just got a full-fledged, I provided them all the documentation from our meetings in 2020, and then Mr. Brown's staff provided a summary

We'll be glad to.

Mr. Engel and I had a very good meeting with the staff of Albemarle County.

No real changes from that, but gave me an opportunity to review the MOU with the county.

The bottom line that they did say was that they're just looking for that 90 to 100 spaces that are identified in the MOU.

Excuse me.

And

that they are on schedule at least within a couple of months of completing the renovations to the courthouse so

Some parts of the MOU are tied to when that construction is completed, so they do anticipate to be on time with that, so that doesn't buy any time.

But they were really indifferent, even though according to the MOU, they do get to make the choice that if a parking structure is not constructed,

We could provide them, again at their choice, other parking spaces in the Market Street garage or then a process to transfer the property back to the county with a financial settlement with that too.

Both are very well spelled out in the MOU and it is fully the county's choice of that.

But again, they expressed that they're really just wanting that 90 to 100 spaces, whether it's on the 7th Street side or whether it's in the Market Street garage.

We left the meeting, at least I did, thinking that following the council's direction before, that we could delay.

We don't eliminate the money out of the CIP, but we do delay it until we can look at other options of how that site might be better developed, either solely for parking or some type of mixed use.

To try to meet the deadlines for the MOU, it would be very difficult to change the plans that we're currently moving under now.

I will say our staff has been continuing to move forward with the current plans because that is what a previous council had approved.

And so there hasn't been any type of action to change us from that path.

Yes, we would push some of the funding and the CIP a little bit further down.

Again, it doesn't save us anything.

It just

changes the timing of the funds so that we could do our due diligence and look at other options for that site.

It would be to either expand what we're looking at or confirm that what direction we've been going is the appropriate direction or otherwise.

The other thing which has been a very large topic I know you all have seen too is to do an assessment of what the parking situation is with COVID

Okay, and then you'll take care of the 90...

Yes.

We know that we have to accommodate that.

And we were very clear with Albemarle County.

It's been our understanding from both the Planning Commission and the City Council.

We intend to honor the MOU with the county.

Okay.

All right.

Ms.

Robertson, do we need to...

Okay.

I would only add

I think as I've expressed many times, you know, I think we absolutely need to agree and honor it.

I don't think, you know, the parking garage of that size is the best way to meet it.

I continue to think that.

Why is your music?

Sorry.

You know, we could, if we delay, I think we'll just end up with the same options.

If we could use this, better utilize the space, you know, if it was mixed use or incorporate housing in some way, but there's no way that's going to help us out on the cost side.

I mean, that could only increase the cost potentially substantially if we're talking about housing

Particularly affordable housing added to the site, both because of the construction in order to get the affordable housing will acquire subsidy.

That would be a better use of the site.

So on that side, it's a win, but it's not going to help the affordability challenge that we're dealing with.

So I think we'll just, you know,

I think it's absolutely worth trying to evaluate if COVID has changed the parking situation more permanently.

How many of these office spaces that have come online will now remain unutilized and perhaps will feel more comfortable that there's no need to build a new structure because the amount of spaces.

But again, I would just say on the affordability side, I don't think expanding the project is going to help at all that.

I think we're just going to end up in the same situation of do we just

find it more prudent to offer the 62 spaces that exist on that surface lot plus, you know, spaces to get to 90 or 100 in the garage, maybe build, you know, a much smaller parking structure that just gets us to 90 to 100 on the 62 existing spots.

So I think we all realize this, but I think we're just going to be in that same situation.

And as I've said before, I think the better option is to

either build the smallest possible structure to meet the bare minimum of the requirements, and particularly if COVID has changed, perhaps allowing Albemarle to exercise their option about the lots versus spots in the garage.

So I think delaying it can help us evaluate those options, but I think we'll still be forced to make

the same choice.

Mr. Boyles, you mentioned when we talked about this, I guess it was our time, Michael's and my time last week,

looking at just all kind of you have to get up to speed and like I know that Chris's team with the parking manager has looked at just like understanding the whole universe of what's available and I know that there's been like efforts to try to reach out for private public partnerships and so I just think that at some point you know in the coming weeks or whatever that would be helpful I think just for us all to kind of have a little more grounding on what that parking universe looks like as we consider

Exactly.

We want to come back to you with a very comprehensive assessment and look because there are a number of other parking spaces within the downtown area that are going away because of construction projects.

The other thing we would want to take a look at is what type of transit possibilities may help to fill some of those needs as well.

So, you know, it touches on a lot of different areas that

And I have a question about the two businesses.

Do they still have to

move on the same timeline or can we reach out to them and tell them that they may be able to stay a little bit longer but we don't know what that time frame could be like.

I can imagine that it's already, you know, difficult.

I'll have to rely on Mr. Engel for that.

Sure, we can take a look at that.

The lease is due technically end this year, but if there's going to be any

Substantial delay, we could look at that.

We've made no promises.

We did make a promise to honor the current leases, and as of the end of this year, we would have done that.

If there is a substantial delay, it might make sense for all parties to entertain something more, but I wouldn't want to commit to that here without further considering that.

As Chip indicated, I think it would be useful

to have sooner than later to have a kind of an assessment and we're working on kind of pulling together all the old information from previous parking studies and present that in a work session to the council so that everybody has a full understanding of the impacts any more than a 30 or 60 day delay

does create the potential for impacts three years from now if a new structure is not built and if parking demand does return on any level similar to what it was previously, it creates a negative situation for the Market Street facility, which means the downtown business community, other visitors to downtown, et cetera, are potentially negatively impacted.

So if

If we're talking about a short delay, that can probably be accommodated without too much challenge.

If it gets to be considerable, then we're certainly looking at additional impacts.

Okay.

All right.

So, basically, from the time of issuing whatever procurement documents initiate the process to final construction,

you are estimating a two and a half year process.

Okay.

I think shaking a snow globe may be the appropriate crystal ball for this evening's efforts, I think, if I'm listening to the weather forecast correctly.

But my overall comments on this, and I've been a staunch advocate for the parking garage even when I

was getting a lot of scorn from some of my environmentalist friends for doing so.

But I also have to look at the

the current parking usage and to recognize that whereas a year ago at this time we regularly in the Market Street lot regularly had no more than about 50 or 75 spots even possibly available midday during the week we've now got 350 spots available midday during the week we may as well be on a permanent weekend as far as the the usage goes

We also know that State Farm in the county has gone to is giving up their building.

They've gone to entirely work from home situation.

We don't know what the future is going to hold for Charlottesville.

whether that same kind of mentality is going to take hold.

But I do think that, number one, it would be a mistake to go ahead and build the parking garage at this time.

Number two, I've expressed earlier some thoughts that just if we would look back in 10 years and say, what, you only built a parking garage on this prime real estate?

and you would be and we'd all be upset.

But I also think that the notion and Mr. Boyle's mentioned of looking for some transit solutions is something else that I've I've been trying to encourage.

thinking about the possibility of, you know, park and ride lots.

And, you know, for example, if people are coming from 29 North, we've got a whole lot of parking places and all these shopping centers on 29 North that aren't being used right now.

and coordinating that with some transit for park and ride could be a very attractive option that would save us a lot.

The one last thing that I want to mention, though, is that even if we were to take out the $8 million from the budget, from the capital budget, and figure that maybe we end up building the structure some years down the road, I don't know.

My guess is that it will take a couple of years, two and a half years, three years anyway, for the COVID situation to sort of shake out, for us to know really what we're dealing with for the long term.

In the meantime, though, I've also been struck by the

the fact that all of the things that we say we want to do as a green city as an environmentally conscious city are bound up in the changes that the truly transformational changes that are being recommended and that we've already started to implement and funding for anyway.

on the West Main Street scape.

I think this is really our 1974 moment.

1974, as you may remember, was the time that council decided after great agony to just go ahead with the downtown mall project.

and that was a $4.1 million project.

It was Charles Barber as the mayor and Mitch Van Yeris who made the decision to look in the future and to decide to spend $4.1 million.

$4.1 million in 1974 equates to about $18.5 million in 2021.

That's almost exactly what we're looking at right now in terms of the amount of money that would be required to, and it's actually the amount of money we've set aside in our previous budget discussions.

That's about the amount of money we would need to get to get us through phase one and at least a significant part of phase two and all of phase three.

And I just the more I thought about it, the more I thought the future of the city is going to be along the axis between downtown and the university.

And we ought to be spending our time, our money, our energy, our resources

on that area.

And I would like to try to put the streets, the main streetscape back in the budget, back in the capital improvement budget and take out the Market Street parking garage on the theory that I just don't think it's likely that we're going to end up needing the Market Street parking garage.

But it is certainly necessary that we make the changes, the transformational changes

on West Main Street.

So I know that there's a difference between $8 million and $13 million.

I can do the math there as well.

But I also think that in terms of long-term benefit to the city, that $13 million would be much better spent than the $8 million we would be spending on the parking garage.

And I would like to ask

and ask the city manager to get together with the staff and figure out if there are ways to reprogram things and move things around.

We've talked about some funds that there's a fair amount of money in that maybe we don't need to fund this year or next year or whatever, but to come up with a plan that might enable us to make the West Main Street project work.

The West Main Street would have been would be our next discussion point but in terms of the garage I am very comfortable and had asked you know when I met with Mr. and the team too like what else could go in this location and could it be more than just parking

A hard time maybe wrapping my head around that this community who is demanding the return the normal the way they are will not be as soon as they can using services and visiting places and shopping in a way that is similar to what was previously done pre-COVID.

We are we are getting those conversations those demands and as you all stated even earlier that there are a lot of people who are just willing to take chances on things so I don't know if we can say that like that what happened with the State Farm Building we haven't had a discussion about how many members we could transfer to work from home permanently and until we have some of those broader discussions we would just be hoping that

it worked out versus actually knowing whether it would work out or not.

And I'm not at all advocating for a parking structure if we don't need one.

I just don't think that we can say and even thinking back to Mrs. Hamill's presentation, we're still running up against the fact that there was no money for everything and

and then if we even choose two of those things we're still running into a situation where we don't know what will happen moving forward and if any new projects that require substantial funding come up that we would not necessarily be able to fund them.

So I don't think anything has changed about

and I have some questions about your comparison to West Main and the downtown mall, but I'm tired.

But I just don't know how we are rating West Main Street and still thinking that that is a must and that it must continue at this time when we're talking about things like housing and schools.

And even when we're talking about transportation to make sure that those parking garages may not be needed in the future, something that has come up and it hasn't come up much in 2020, but the previous two years, the signalization and that infrastructure needing to be upgraded to even be able to move the floor traffic throughout the city.

We haven't, that's not

unless I missed it in our CIP the way that staff has talked to us in the past about it needing to be there even to move from cars to transit services more and so there are a lot of things that I think are on those staff

submit requests for, but they don't make it to us for funding lists, that we also have to consider how they impact these other items that we say we want.

We want to invest in transit, so fewer people drive, so people will need less parking, but we don't think about every aspect that factors into that.

And the upgrades in the signalization, are they funded?

There is some money in the CIP for signalization.

I don't know that it's optimal.

I think I saw Marty on the call.

And I'm just using that as an example, but of something that has come up over the years that we've been kind of, you know, doing incrementally that based on what has been said previously, it's one of those things that needed a lot more support, even for us to be able to say that our buses will run on time to reduce the car traffic that we say we want to reduce for all the bike pad conversations that we

I didn't catch the full question, I'm sorry, but I think the $200,000 that Chrissy's mentioning for signalization, that's for the CFP for signal replacement, and you cannot replace a single traffic signal intersection for $200,000.

And my only point for using that as an example, I was thinking about that when we were having this, when you all, the Planning Commission discussion around us, because I was really surprised at the support that West Main Street was getting.

And I was thinking about the conversations we've had over the years and in that moment wondering like how we're not linking

all of these things together when we say that to make even a West Main Street and the beautification of it, but also some of the necessary changes of it actually work if that is something that we say that is needed.

My understanding was that if we don't do West Main as it is presently set out, we will have between three and five million dollars of additional significant capital costs that we will have to fund somehow.

So what we're really talking about is a difference of $8 million between the $3 to $5 million for the signalization, for redoing the sidewalks, for curb cuts and ADA compliance and all the other, the above ground stuff that has to get done, that was estimated at $3 to $5 million.

Where I struggle, and obviously we met at length with staff and listening to the Planning Commission and also just, you know, folks who have been along this process.

I mean, just how long of a process this was.

And I see that I understand that some people

are referring to as a streetscape.

I just think it's so much more than that and the amount of engagement and also just the investment that's happened and not to mention like the biggest thing is just the other dollars coming from other sources that are not the city and there's just not a lot of projects where we find those opportunities and I heard a lot of support for obviously phases one and three because those funding has been allocated for those or there's anticipated approval of funding for phase three entirely through SmartScale but that leaves us with phase two of a gap and I think that

If anyone heard the conversations that Councilor Snook and I heard with staff about that, it's not the most efficient way to go about this is by doing phases one and three and not actually getting the whole piece.

And I think that there's a lot of efficiencies with doing both phases together.

And I think we're just still at this point or just it's challenging because we don't have the funding even in the CIP to do all three phases.

But I'm just, I'm really struggling with just closing the door on this.

And I really appreciate that we've taken the time to

to listen to a number of groups who have been part of the whole process, whether it's their environmental law center like PEC and community members who have been part of this process for years that precede all of us on council.

But I'm interested in trying to find a way to get phases one and two done.

And obviously phase three would follow a smart scale.

Phase four, I just think it's just not in reach.

and obviously there's some university dollars tied to that but I think it's required to be more most close phase to the university setting but I'm just really struggling with the amount of investment and time and energy and that we just have the cycle of just kind of going through a process and not being able to kind of see it through and the Belmont Bridge went through several iterations and it costs a lot of money to get there and I don't want us to look back and

and feel like we cut this short.

At the same time, I'm admitting there's just a lot of budget shortfall right now, and it's almost impossible to put our head around, but obviously the biggest question mark I think that many of us came away with last week was just the schools and what are their different options for the schools.

Yeah.

It's just that until we get through like this affordable housing plan, like if we were prioritizing and maybe that's something that we should do and if we were prioritizing the unknowns of schools, the unknowns around the affordable housing plan and whether

Anything else that came up with the not knowing how long the pandemic is going to last and what impacts that will have long term on stabilizing the community, citizens, businesses.

and how quickly that turnaround happens.

Does it happen like it did during the Great Recession where we're not really impacted and then people who were kind of got back on their feet?

And then as mentioned earlier, some people who were pushed out of the housing market, I know some people personally during that time were never able to re-enter it.

Do we want to save some space for that and just say that until we have some clear answers, then both West Main and the parking garage, we will put them on hold and give staff the directive to not move forward until then, or are we seeing that the unknowns around schools, the affordable housing, that we'll not do anything, I guess, but West Main Street really well.

and the other two will fit in the budget because if we prioritize West Main Street, that's essentially what we're doing.

because we don't have enough information about the other, even just the affordable housing and the schools yet to even say what we're working with.

And so if we okay West Main at this point, we are limiting schools to an amount because we're boxing ourselves in.